This year (2009) we skipped the International Harm Reduction Conference which was held in Bangkok

Instead I was out to Vancouver twice in May/June.  First to attend the Canadian Drug Policy Consortium's 1st organizing meeting, and then to take part in the Pacific Summit on Drug User Health which was organized by VANDU

At the CDPC meeting about 50 of us worked for 3 days on setting strategic plans and overall direction for the development of an umbrella alternative drug policy organization for Canada.  As a result, we produced an initial document entitled One Step Further:  Toward a Canadian Civil Society Voice on Drug Policy (PDF download)

The Pacific Summit was an amazing gathering of active drug user activists from B.C. and the Yukon.   Luckily Deb and I were invited as special guests and we found the 3 days absolutely fantastic.  VANDU is an incredibly well organized group, all the more significant because its membership is entirely street-involved active drug users and thus their accomplishments shoot to hell the negative stereotyping of drug users as losers.   Arising from the Summit was the formation of the BC/Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors as a network group for activists throughout the West.

We're going to be attending the international harm reduction conference in Barcelona, Spain from May 11 to May 15.   I've been to one previous international harm reduction conference in Vancouver two years ago.  My partner went to the Vancouver one also, and the year before she attended the conference in Belfast.

We had decided to skip the conference this year because we just didn't think we could raise the money needed to attend.  However, just six weeks prior to the conference, I gave a workshop on organzing user groups at the OHRDP's Annual Conference in Ottawa and after the workshop a participant suggested we email a person with the Ontario's Hepatitis C Secretariat because they had some end of the year funding available.  30 minutes after we sent off our email we received back a reply that we would be each given $4000 grant to attend the Barcelona conference.

We qualified for the drug user organization reduced rate for the conference registration but nonetheless it still costs 759 Euros or $1193 Canadian dollars EACH just to attend the conferenc.    After booking our flights with Air France, and reserving 7 nights double room at Novotel Saint Juan Despi, we were left with $750 each for a per diem expenses.  After converting to Euros it isn't a lot, but its enough.   On top of that, we have received a donation from our local Harm Reduction Task Force in Belleville, Ontario, and some generous personal donations.